


Command and Control

by Zauzat



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Drama, M/M, Politics, Star Trek: Into Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 15:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3451886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zauzat/pseuds/Zauzat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim is surprised to find out who Admiral Pike's lover is. The story of how they met confounds everything he thought he knew about Admiral Barnett. (Set in an alternative ST Into Darkness universe, where Pike lived.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Command and Control

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by imachar.

**Stardate 2259.55**

Pike ran his hands over his face in frustration. There had to be something he wasn’t seeing, a connection, a motive, something…. Who the hell was John Harrison - an officer who seemed to have appeared from nowhere, with no record or personnel file? What hold had he had over Lieutenant Thomas Harewood? Somewhere in the carnage of the Daystrom Conference Room and the Kelvin Memorial Archive, hidden among the twisted rubble and mangled corpses there must be some kind of clue. Had Harrison been after Starfleet Command in general, Admiral Marcus in particular, someone else entirely? What was the reason for it all?

Leaving aside the tragedy of the lives so abruptly terminated, good people Starfleet could ill afford to lose, the organisation as a whole couldn’t take another public disaster, not barely a year after failing to protect Vulcan. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, watching patterns of electric colour swirl through the darkness, as meaningless as the mass of photographs and reports that lay spread out in front of him. Dammit, they had to find an answer before this madman struck again. With a weary sigh, he tried to concentrate.

The shrill clamour of the doorbell broke his focus, the chime sounding again and again as someone stabbed at it aggressively. Pike stumped his way down the hallway, stumbling on his bad leg, his frustration and lack of sleep welling up in righteous anger at the intrusion. He swung the door open. “What the hell—“

He stepped back in surprise as Jim Kirk pushed roughly past him. “What are you doing here?” 

He followed Jim back towards the kitchen, where his work was spread out across the table. Jim, who had still not spoken, stared down at the vid stills from the Daystrom Conference room for a long moment, before suddenly turning on him.

“It could’ve been you! On the Enterprise. They offered her to you! You could’ve taken her up, I could’ve served under you. Do you have any idea of how desperately I wanted to fucking fly with you? Right through the fucking Academy, it was all I was working for, to be on _your_ senior crew. And after everything that went down, finally — you could’ve had her — and me. And you palmed us off on Captain Agbemabiese?” Jim’s voice was tight with anger, rising ever higher in his indignation.

Pike stared at him in bewilderment, too punch-drunk with tiredness to protest.

“It could’ve been you,” Jim repeated, his shoulders slumping, his voice suddenly soft. “If I’d got what I wanted, what I thought I deserved, it would’ve been you. She was sitting next to me. I watched her die, lying on the fucking floor. If I’d had it my way, it would’ve been you.” 

And finally Pike understood, taking in the exhaustion on Jim’s face, his drawn cheeks and red-rimmed eyes. In their four years of dancing around each other, mentor and protégée, each perhaps a little over-invested in the other, they’ve never discussed this explicitly. They’d never talked about the weight it carried each time Pike called Jim _son_ , never acknowledged the way Jim’s face lit up when Pike approved of him, never admitted that their disagreements cut deep in both of them.

Without saying anything, Pike reached out to Jim. It wasn’t fucking protocol but he was long past caring. In two long strides the young man was in his arms, hands clenched tight around Pike’s back, face buried against his neck. Pike rubbed his face gently against Jim’s spiky hair, sliding a hand soothingly up and down the younger man’s back. He thought of Captain Sherifatu Asare Agbemabiese, how he’d first met the brash young Ghanaian at the Academy, how their friendship had flourished over the decades, how he’d personally recommended her for the Enterprise command when he’d reluctantly turned it down himself, how he’d made that offer conditional on Agbemabiese taking Jim as her first officer. He thought about how grateful she’d been, and how excited. He thought about Jim watching her die on the floor of the Daystrom Conference room, Jim, who’d already been through so much.

He thought about how close Jim had come to dying himself and he pulled the young man in tight against him, as if with a hug alone he could protect Jim from the dark times they lived in. 

Once the tremors running down Jim’s back had subsided, he gently pulled back so that he could see his face. “I’m still here, son. Despite everything, we’re both still here.” Impulsively, he leaned forward and kissed Jim on the temple.

“What the hell is going on? Why do we have a guest at oh four fucking fifty in the morning? And didn’t I tell you to come to bed hours ago?” 

The deep growl coming from the passage had Jim abruptly stepping back out of Pike’s arms. The young man’s mask of equanimity was instantly restored and there was already a mischievous smirk on his face, as he prepared to tease Pike about having found him entertaining a bed partner. 

That was until a broad figure loomed in the doorway. Jim’s eyes widened in horror and he snapped to attention, offering a hasty salute. “Admiral Barnett, sir!”

“Oh fuck. You. Like the day couldn’t get any worse. Oh for God’s sake, at ease Kirk.” Barnett turned to Pike. “This is your fault. I need coffee!” 

Barnett marched past them, dressed in wine red flannel pyjamas with navy piping, heading determinedly for Pike’s state of the art coffee machine. 

Jim turned to Pike with wide eyes, and spoke in a loud whisper. “Damn sir, I knew you were a brave man, but hell! Admiral Barnett? I’m impressed!” 

“Richard?” Pike grinned at Jim in amusement. “He’s just an overgrown pussycat.”

“Not so much when he’s heading the Academy Board at your disciplinary hearing, he’s not,” retorted Jim.

“Or when you’re a captain who’s just pissed all over the Prime Directive,” said Barnett sourly, turning back towards them, now that the coffee machine was efficiently gurgling. Jim’s ebullience visibly subsided and he ducked his head in embarrassment. Barnett regarded him impassively.

“You’re not my favourite officer, Kirk, that can hardly come as a surprise. But for what it’s worth, I supported Chris in getting you back on the Enterprise as first officer.” He waited until Jim lifted his head to regard Barnett with wary surprise. “There was no way I was prepared to take round two of you at the Academy!” 

Chris laughed. “Oh come on, you got very good value out of Jim’s travails at the Academy, you exploited the situation mercilessly.” 

Barnett leaned back against the kitchen counter, broad arms crossed over his chest, and let his eyes run blatantly all the way down Chris’s lean body and back up again. Finally he flicked his glance across to Jim, who was watching the two of them with fascination. “You should be grateful to Admiral Pike, Kirk. He had to do some, uh, creative begging on your behalf now and then.” 

He smirked at Jim’s look of horror, picked up the cup of coffee, strong, dark and unsweetened, and walked across to the door. “I’m gonna get dressed. I doubt anyone’s going to get any more sleep now.”

Jim watched him go and then turned to Pike with a puzzled frown. “Admiral Barnett, sir? Really? He just doesn’t seem your type. He’s a bit, well…” He hesitated.

Pike watched him with amusement before finally supplying, “stuffy, perhaps?”

“Well, yeah, kinda.”

“You need to learn to see beyond superficial appearances, Jim. Richard has put a lot of effort into cultivating his stuffed shirt persona. Sure, he can be a bit prissy at times, but actually, he can be one hell of a rule-breaker, when it suits him, and his reputation is such that no one would ever suspect it. You need to think about it, Jim. You’re now widely seen as a maverick, with justification, given the last few years. You can use that to your advantage, but only if you can be more than that. If you can keep a cool head and a clear plan, then you can play your reputation to your advantage.”

Jim looked sceptical. “He’s a rule-breaker? Honestly?” 

“Honestly. He’s the reason I turned down the Enterprise. I really did want to fly with you, Jim. It wasn’t easy to turn her down. But after all we’d been through together, after the Narada, I wasn’t prepared to leave Richard again. Do you want to know how we met?”

“Christopher! Don’t you dare.” Barnett’s deep voice rang out from the next room.

Pike laughed. “Don’t lurk out there, eavesdropping. You won’t hear anything good about yourself, that way. Either join us or get lost.”

Barnett moved into the doorway, leaning against the frame, hands cupped round his mug of coffee. “You can’t seriously be going to tell him?”

“Yeah, I can. There’s a lesson in there that’ll do him good. Teaching moment and all that jazz.”

Barnett regarded Pike sceptically. “Fine, okay, but no— _details_.”

“Spoilsport! The _details_ were the fun bit.”

Barnett’s stern face softened. “You’re not wrong there. Okay, I’ll trust you to know what you’re doing. I’m going to take a shower. You tell your story. And maybe when you’re done, we can have some breakfast and your young man can give us some idea as to what the hell actually went down at Daystrom.” 

Jim looked on in surprise as Barnett disappeared back down the passage way. “So he doesn’t totally hate me?”

“He doesn’t hate you at all. He’s just a bit exasperated by you at times. Take a seat.” Pike waved to the table while he dialled two more coffee orders into the machine. “Do you know that when I first met him I was locked up in the brig on Starbase 3, facing a court martial for mutiny?”

Jim gaped at him in blank surprise. “You, sir? Charged with mutiny?”

“Yup, you aren’t the only young officer to get into trouble in your career, Jim. I had been temporarily assigned to the USS Aldrin as the first officer under a crusty old bastard called Captain Kamnach. There was a civil war raging in the Vestios system, with the rebels attacking Federation ships, in the hope of drawing us into the fight. Kamnach had a good career record but he was using a little too much initiative in interfering in a war we were supposed to be simply observing. Unprovoked, he attacked an official military vessel and then falsified the official logs to provide justification.” 

Pike carried two mugs of coffee to the table and sat down, regarding Jim with a steady gaze. “I have no time for officers who falsify official logs, Jim, or for captains who don’t respect the chair. It’s a betrayal of all we stand for in Starfleet. I relieved him of duty.”

Jim flushed a dull brick-red, hiding his face behind his coffee mug. 

Pike leaned back in his chair, his long legs crossed under the table. “Of course not everyone shared my point of view. Kamnach had powerful friends and as I said, I ended up locked up in solitary in the brig of the nearest starbase, up on charges of mutiny. 

“Things have changed a bit since then, now we have a preliminary hearing first, but back in those days, they’d just send some tight-assed lawyer from the Judge Advocate General Corps who never seen a day of space service in his life to take your affidavit. Then that’d be handed to your counsel and you’d go straight into the court martial. 

“So there I was, my career in ruins, facing demotion at the very best and dishonourable discharge at the worst, and JAG had sent some inexperienced desk jockey of a junior officer who looked barely old enough to shave to interview me. His name was Lieutenant Barnett.”

* * *

**Stardate 2236.17**

Chris read slowly, carefully, through the affidavit that Lieutenant Barnett had prepared, based on the many hours of interviewing they had just completed. He found it difficult to concentrate, the words swimming in front of his eyes - this cold emotionless text with its lack of nuance and context, it was all that stood between him and an ignominious end to his Starfleet career. 

“Yes, it’s accurate,” he said at last to Barnett. A fucking lieutenant. Chris’s career was spiralling down into a black hole, a young Commander going up against a senior Captain, and they’d sent an officer barely out of kindergarten to take his deposition. A prissy young officer whose biggest concern was that his padd be lined up exactly parallel to his comm on the small table that separated them. 

“Before you sign, are you quite sure that there are no further details you wish to add?” Barnett’s voice seemed to mock him with its careful blandness.

Chris gritted his teeth, and tried to keep his tone neutral. “We’ve been through every single stage of this three times already.” This is what you got when you had to try and explain the complexities of multiple races clashing in deep space to some child who’d lived his whole life on Earth. How the hell could Starfleet think this was a good way to run the organisation?

“And you are certain you’ve told me everything that matters, and told it truthfully?”

“Yes, I’m damned certain!” Chris dug his nails into the palms of his clenched fists. He had to keep his cool, to portray his absolute confidence. If his anxiety leaked through, it might look like weakness - or guilt. “We’ve been at this for hours.”

“It is important to have an accurate measure of the facts, this is a serious matter—”

And that was more than Chris could take, keeping cool be damned. It was not a _serious matter_ , it was his entire career. Starfleet was all he’d ever wanted, it was everything he’d hoped to be. Without it…. Without it he didn’t know who he was. Without it, there was no point.

Furiously, he signed the document and thrust the padd across the table to the young lawyer.

“This is my fucking career, my life!” he snapped. “Have you treated Captain Kamnach like this, endless goddamned hours of interrogation? Over and over again? I bet you haven’t. I bet you just took whatever bullshit he prepared for you, all yes sir and no sir and can I lick your boots, sir? I know what you damned paper-pushing officers are like. I know he’s confined to base during this investigation, confined to the entire fucking Starbase 3, while I’m confined to a twelve by twelve cell. I know I’m being set up to take the fall.”

He could hear the fear leaking out behind his anger. He’d been so certain he’d been doing the right thing when he stood Captain Kamnach down. Logs had been falsified to justify the unauthorised military intervention - he’d seen the changes. Starfleets regs were clear about what a serious offence that was. He’d been sure the letter of the law would be all the defence he needed.

He’d been very naive. He didn’t have proof beyond his own recollections. He’d not realised how influential Captain Kamnach actually was, how many connections he could call on, how Chris’s words and actions would be reinterpreted in the official reports, how little it took to make it look like mutiny. And there was no grand impartial voice of the law, no woman with her blindfold and her balances to measure out justice. Just Kamnach calling in all his Admiralty allies and Chris stuck in a small cell, alone, separated from the friends he’d had among the crew, and the one voice that might have spoken out for him in the Admiralty only noticeable for the deafening silence. 

And this was the face of the law. This awkwardly precise young man, big in stature, tall and broad, but soft on the edges. Chris could tell at a glance that he wasn’t combat trained. Desk-jockey, paper-pusher, no real-world experience, Chris could have taken him down in five minutes in a hand-to-hand fight. But there was nothing he could do here, his strength, skills, training, his track record with Starfleet, all worthless. Everything hung on the deposition that this fool had drawn up and would now hand to Chris’s counsel for the court martial. 

Chris was up on his feet, fists thumped down on the small table, glaring at Barnett. The other man was seated on the chair on the other side, the only chair in the room. Chris had to make do with the edge of the bed. The young lawyer carefully straightened the padd that had been so roughly thrust at him, and looked up at Chris. “Yes, I treated Captain Kamnach exactly like this,” he said evenly, his voice deep and slow. “The interview took hours. We went through events multiple times. I questioned every one of his statements.”

Chris’s surprise tamped down his anger. “He can’t have been happy with that.”

“I can assure you that he wasn’t.” There was an edge of sardonic amusement in Barnett’s steady voice that caught Chris’s attention.

“Yeah, he never did like being told he was wrong about anything.” Chris smiled sourly at the memories. 

“He started out just trying to pull rank on me. By the end he was threatening to destroy my career and those of any relatives I might have in the service. It was not a pleasant experience.” For the first time in all the hours they’ve been together, Barnett graced Chris with a trace of a smile, his stern face softening in ways that were surprisingly attractive. “In comparison, you’ve been a delight to deal with, Commander.”

“And despite all that, you took him through every detail, like you’ve done with me?” Chris was reluctantly impressed, well aware of how intimidating Kamnach could be when he chose. 

“It took a lot longer, what with all his blustering, but yes, I did. That is my job.” Barnett’s quiet certainty was impressive. His implacable composure was beginning to look a lot more like strength of character than simply lack of experience. 

Chris, feeling embarrassed by his outburst, sat back down again. “Can you tell me what my chances are? Honestly?”

Barnett looked back at him unhappily. “Honestly? The law is on your side. But the politics…. Not so much. Kamnach is part of a powerful faction among the conservative wing of Starfleet. He’s served them well over many years, which means he has a lot of favours to call in.” 

Barnett carefully picked up the padd and put it in his briefcase. “It’s not right, what Kamnach’s trying to do here. I didn’t sign up for the Starfleet mission to be part of this.”

Chris looked at him curiously, caught by the undertone of frustration and unhappiness in his voice. “Yes, well. It turns out the mission is a lot messier in reality than it was on the recruiting brochure.”

“Still, the fact that it is difficult to achieve is not a good enough reason to tolerate injustice. We ought to be better than this.”

Barnett walked to the door and then hesitated, turning to look back at Chris. “It would really help if there was someone, anyone, at Admiralty level, who would come out in your defence?” 

The unspoken name hovered in the air between them. And if _he_ set the tone by not speaking up, then no one else would either. Chris dropped his eyes. “No. I don’t think there’ll be any help. Not for a court martial.” 

“Really?” He could hear the surprise in Barnett’s voice, and it fed straight into the ache at his very core.

“It’s not that he doesn’t care,” Chris said defensively. “It’s just— well, he always made it really clear that being an Admiral’s brat wasn’t going to get me any special favours, and I couldn’t expect him to make exceptions for me in the service. And if I ever got myself into trouble, I’d be on my own getting myself out again. He’s a man of his word. And he’s a great believer in respecting the chain of command…”

Chris trailed off into silence, aware that his attempt at explaining was slipping into babbling and Barnett didn’t look any more convinced by it than he himself felt. 

“Right,” Barnett said, his voice flat. After a moment, he added, “Is there anything else _I_ can do to help? Anything I can bring you or—“ He shrugged awkwardly.

“Sure,” replied Chris bitterly, lounging back on his bench-bed, trying to swallow down his own humiliation. “I’d like some of those Vestian cacao cookies, the crunchy ones, and some decent damned alcohol. And oh yes, while you’re at it, a handjob wouldn’t go amiss.”

Barnett turned on his heel without answering and walked out, leaving Chris already regretting his childish rudeness to the only ally he seemed to have. He listened as Barnett’s footsteps echoed down the hallway and then faded into silence, leaving him once again very alone. Finally he walked over to the door and called out to the guard, a young Betazoid. “Have there been any messages for me while he was here? Any news?“

She shook her head with a sad smile. “No Commander Pike, there has been no reply from Admiral Pike.”

Chris slunk back into the silence of his cell and buried his head in his hands. 

* * *

It was many long hours later when Chris lifted his head at the sound of soft voices outside his holding cell.

“Now I’m trusting you, young man. Don’t betray that.”

“I won’t.”

With a soft whoosh the door slid open and he caught a glimpse of the guard before she was obscured by the young lawyer stepping quietly into the room, holding a dark cloth bag.

Chris was up on his feet immediately, pulse surging with anxiety. “What’s going on? What’s gone wrong?”

“Nothing,” replied Barnett in his deep, steady voice. “We’re all just waiting. I submitted my report this afternoon, there’s nothing more I can do. It’s in the hands of the higher-ups. You said you wanted cookies and coffee, so I brought you some.” 

Chris watched bewildered as the other man carefully brought out a thermos of coffee and a box filled with crunchy Vestian cacao cookies and placed them on the small table, lined up neatly next to each other. 

“That’s not exactly what I asked for, but I guess one out of three is about what JAG is capable of,” said Chris, trying to make a joke of it, but aware how lame it sounded. He was still regarding Barnett warily. There had to be some trick to this but he couldn’t see what it was - and the cookies were freshly baked and emitting an enticing odour. The food served in the brig was adequate in quantity and nutritionally balanced, but it was also bland and boring.

He bit into the soft crumb of the cookie, relishing the rich flavour melting luxuriously in his mouth, and then took the small thermos cup filled with liquid that Barnett had silently offered him. It smelt good and he’d missed decent coffee. He tossed in back in one long swallow—

“Careful!”

The drink burned down the back of his throat, sending hot flares scorching through his nerves. He doubled over, coughing, eyes watering, while Barnett chuckled above him. “Is there any coffee in this at all?” asked Chris eventually, when he got his breath back.

“Just enough for it to pass a smell test.” 

Chris took another, much smaller sip, rolling the potent liquid around his mouth, letting the fumes fill his nasal cavities. It was as if he could feel it soaking into his bloodstream.

“Take it easy,” said Barnett, “it’s strong as hell and that’s all I’ve got.”

“Well then, you’d better get to work drinking some before I finish it all off.”

Barnett shifted awkwardly, still standing by the table. “I only meant to stop by for a minute, just to drop these things off.”

“Look, a JAG lawyer is never going to be my first choice for a drinking buddy but I’ve been sitting on my own, stewing, for hours. I’ll take any company I can get at this point. Sit down. Drink.”

The lawyer sat down carefully on the chair across from the bed and took a careful sip from the small cup. “You have a lot of success with lines like that?” he asked laconically.

Chris found himself grinning back, against his better judgement. “I do okay. Although I can’t say I’m at my best right now.”

The drink was working quickly, warming him from the inside and he was so tired of being worried. They sat together, passing the small cup back and forth, and sharing the cookies. Barnett made desultory small talk, gossip from the Starbase, news from San Francisco headquarters. 

“How the hell did you wangle your way in here?” asked Chris as last.

“The guard is a Betazoid, she apparently senses I don’t mean you any harm.”

“Hmmm.” Chris lifted the almost empty thermos and let the last drops drip into his mouth. “I guess it depends what you mean by harm.” 

“Indeed. I can’t decide whether that means Betazoid guards are a very good idea or a really bad one.”

“Fortunately it’s not our problem, us junior officers,” replied Chris. “We just do what we’re told. Ours not to reason why and all that.”

Barnett broke the last cookie in half and offered one piece to Chris with a crooked grin, the alcohol having apparently finally melted away his stern exterior. “Oh yes, we’re clearly being model officers here. Well, I guess I should be on my way.”

Chris felt a sudden surge of panic. After the easy pleasure of Barnett’s company, the lonely silence of his cell seemed even worse. He so desperately wanted to just get on with the court martial and there was nothing he could do to speed up the snail crawl of time passing. Barnett was surprisingly easy to talk to and his solid, steady presence felt like the one stable point in Chris’s world of swirling uncertainty. 

“I seem to remember that I asked for three things. You’ve only delivered on two of them.”

Barnett regarded his quizzically.

“Oh come on, I’ll make it worth your while. I assure you I’m good at it.” Chris dropped his voice a register, letting seduction slide into his lazy look-over of Barnett. The lawyer wasn’t Chris’s normal type of athletic fuck, but he was surprisingly handsome in his own way and that broad body might not be combat-trained but he exuded his own sort of power. “Isn’t it every JAG’s wet dream? A ship’s officer on his knees expressing his gratitude for being bailed out of the shit?” Chris licked his lips flirtatiously, to make his meaning as clear as possible. 

Barnett looked confused for a moment and then abruptly horrified. “I’m not here expecting that! How can you even think that?” He was on his feet and backing away towards the door. 

Dammit to hell, Chris should have realised that Barnett was far too straight-laced to find that kind of fantasy titillating. He was scrabbling for words to make it better, to stop Barnett from leaving. “I didn’t mean— I wasn’t suggesting— Oh fuck it.” Chris rolled onto his back on the bench and put his hands over his face. “I didn’t mean that. I just don’t want to be stuck here alone.” He kept his eyes firmly shut, he didn’t want to see pitying disdain on the face of the young lawyer. 

There was a long silence and then footsteps slowly approached his bench. “Move over.” Barnett nudged him as he sat down on the edge of the bench and then swung his legs up to lie down. “Staying for a while is something I can do.”

The bench was narrow and Barnett’s shoulders were broad. Chris found himself pushed up against the wall and eventually he did the only logical thing in the circumstances. He turned on his side so he was lying with his head on Barnett’s shoulder, his body pressed up alongside the other man. “You have strange ideas about what you are and aren’t prepared to do. I can’t figure you out. Stick-up-the-ass prude or weirdly selective rule-breaker.” 

Barnett laughed softly. “Believe me, I don’t know what I’m doing here either. This is not my normal post-deposition procedure.” 

They lay for a while in companionable silence, with Chris finding himself ever more distracted by the scent of Barnett’s skin and the warmth of his body. It wasn’t that comfortable to be scrunched up against the wall either. Eventually he gave in to temptation and slung one leg across Barnett’s solid thighs and put an arm across the broad chest. “Just getting more comfortable,” he explained.

Barnett helpfully slid an arm around his back, pressing Chris in close against him, so close Chris’s cock was beginning to pulse against Barnett’s leg. Aroused, confused, wary of chasing Barnett away, Chris mentally tried to will his cock into quiescence. As a senior officer on an impressive ship, he was used to getting what he wanted. Normally a charming smile across a bar and an interrogative raise of one eyebrow was all it took. He hadn’t had to exercise this much self-restraint in years. He closed the hand that lay on Barnett’s chest into a fist, to stop his curious fingers from going exploring, and tried to focus on breathing deeply and evenly. Although all that did was flood his senses with the other man’s musky scent. 

Barnett’s fingers might have been moving slowly along his waist…. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just wishful thinking on his part. Was Barnett rubbing his face gently against his hair? He couldn’t be sure. It was all so unimportant in the bigger scheme of things but right now nothing mattered more than not having this young man walk out on him because he’d said the wrong thing, yet again. He was almost trembling with the effort as he kept his lower body stock-still, caught tightly between the wall and Barnett’s warm body, with his cock swelling enthusiastically to fill the very last space. 

Warm fingers trailing gently across his cheek were unmistakable but still, maybe Barnett was just checking his temperature? At last, goaded beyond endurance, he turned his head abruptly and caught the wandering fingers between his lips, laving them with his tongue. He tasted the salt and the last crumbs of the cookies. There was a shocked intake of breath and then Barnett rolled onto his side, facing Chris, trailing wet fingers across his cheek to cup his head and finally, warm, broad lips closed over his own. Barnett’s kiss was tentative, lips moving gently against his own, then just the tip of tongue curiously licking along the stubble near the corner of his mouth, carrying with it a trace of the taste of the liquor. 

Chris pulled himself in as tightly as he could against the bigger man’s body, pushing a leg between the firm thighs, getting his hand in under the jacket and the undershirt, digging his nails into the heated skin. And then he took control of the kiss, demanding entry into the other man’s mouth, seeking out the recesses of deep and wet and warm. As hard as he pushed up against Barnett, the other man stayed steady and solid, sheltering Chris from the cold emptiness of his cell, and of his future.

Chris had always loved ships for their solidity, for the way they hung in space, apparently weightless, and yet had such physical presence under his feet, steady strumming power. Barnett felt like the living embodiment of a ship, sturdy and purposeful, standing solid in the face of Chris’s restless passion. 

It was awkward and fumbling, each lying on their side on the narrow bench, with very limited range of movement and only a little skin that could be reached by undoing buttons and pushing up shirts. It was more inelegant than the worst making out of Chris’s teenage years, but still his cock was rock hard and his pulse was pounding in his ears. 

“Oh fuck yes!” Barnett’s broad fingers had cupped his aching erection through the rough fabric of his trousers.

“Keep quiet!” hissed Barnett. “I’m pretty sure this is beyond anything the guard had in mind.” 

Chris pressed his face against Barnett’s neck to stifle his laughter. “It’s beyond anything I was expecting from that prick of a lawyer who came to interview me this morning.”

Barnett chuckled nervously. “Believe me, we moved beyond anything I ever thought I’d do hours ago.”

Chris wriggled round to get both his hands free and began to undo Barnett’s trousers. The other man stopped him. “No, don’t. It’s not that— It’s just— Look, I don’t think I can. Not here. This is so far outside my comfort zone. But I can take care of you. I’d like to.” Barnett trailed off, as if unsure whether his offer would be welcome. 

“Please damn well do. I haven’t felt this solidly cock-teased in years. At this point I think I could get off even if Captain Kamnach himself walked in to watch.”

Barnett pushed Chris up against the wall, keeping one arm firmly round his back, and used the other, with Chris’s eager help, to undo his flies. Chris was not small but Barnett had huge hands and Chris found his cock satisfyingly enclosed in a hot, silky palm. The angle was awkward, they had no lube, Barnett didn’t give the impression of a man who’d given hundreds of handjobs in his life. And none of it mattered. They clung together, trading hot messy kisses, while Chris rutted into Barnett’s hand, letting his rapidly rising flares of arousal push aside all his worried thoughts, letting the immediacy of heat and need spill across his raw nerves until his hips were jerking helplessly and he was spilling come over both of them.

Barnett, as prepared as any good boy scout, found a handkerchief in a pocket, cleaned up both of them as best he could, and then tucked Chris in under his chin, both arms wrapped solidly around his back. Chris floated in the safe space, buzzing from the release, wired from the risk of it, the awfulness of his situation still nagging at the edges of his mind. 

With his face pressed against Barnett’s neck, it tumbled out before he could stop it, before he’d even realised what he was saying. 

“I’m scared.”

The words hung in the silence, heavy, shameful.

At last Barnett replied, his voice steady and measured. “You should be. You’re in deep trouble and you’d be a fool if you weren’t frightened.” He ran a hand reassuringly up Chris’s back. “One thing I know for certain, you’re not a fool. Whatever happens, even if the very worst comes to pass and you get discharged from Starfleet, you’ll be okay. You’ll find your way in the world. You’re too damn capable to do anything else.”

Discharged from Starfleet, dishonourably discharged, the worst outcome he could think of, the one that set off the stew of panic roiling in his stomach, rising like acid reflux into the back of his throat. 

“If I get discharged from Starfleet, my father will never speak to me again.” 

That was his other awful truth, the measure of the depth of his shame. Ever since he’d been a small child, he’d known the path he needed to walk to live up the legacy of the Pike name, to live up to generations of family commitment to the service. And now he was failing in the most publicly humiliating way possible. 

After a long silence, Barnett’s deep voice sounded in the darkness, as sure as ever. “With all the respect due to an admiral, your father is an ass.” 

Chris found himself hugging Barnett tightly, his face buried against Barnett’s collarbone, laughing helplessly. It was true, all of it. He was chest-deep in the shit and his career was in a possibly terminal nose-dive and he might yet be discharged. But if it came to that, he’d survive and eventually he’d thrive again. He had time and ability and determination on his side. It would be okay. And if his father never spoke to him again because of it, he was indeed an ass. 

Barnett gently carded his fingers through Chris’s sweaty curls. “Try to get some sleep. You need all the rest you can get before the court-martial. I’ll stay as long as I can.” 

Chris curled in tight against Barnett’s solid warmth and closed his eyes. 

* * *

**Stardate 2259.55**

Barnett strolled back into the kitchen, now fully dressed in his uniform greys. “Get in the shower Chris. Time is passing and we need to make sense of this Daystrom disaster.”

Pike nodded, breaking off from telling his tale.

“Hey, you can’t just stop there,” protested Jim. “Okay, so Admiral Barnett broke the rules and smuggled in cookies and alcohol to you, and I’m not stupid, there is sub-text there like flashing neon lights, and I’m not sure why implying that you two were doing it in the brig is meant to be setting me a good example, but hey, it sounds hot. But you can’t not tell me how the court martial played out.”

“You tell him, Richard,” said Pike. “And get some breakfast going while you’re at it. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Barnett regarded Pike with a sly smile. “Tell him how much, exactly?”

A long heated look passed between them.

“About the politics, of course,” replied Pike smoothly. “His over-active imagination will fill in the rest anyway.”

* * *

**Stardate 2236.19**

Richard stared morosely into his drink as he sat at a quiet corner of the long bar. It was supposed to be a celebration, dammit. There was no doubt that this would do very good things for his career, and up until now, he’d had no problem quietly and privately collecting his successes, making his steady, focused way forward in his life. It had never felt this lonely before.

Somewhere out there Commander Pike was celebrating too, but not with the likes of Richard. Chris Pike would doubtless be surrounded by handsome starship officers, all swopping tales of adrenaline-driven derring-do. Or by exotic aliens and dashing diplomats, the cream of the intrepid space-farers who flocked through a large starbase, every one of them lusting to take the handsome young officer to bed. He wouldn’t want to spend his time with stodgy young lawyers from JAG with desk jobs and no space service. He’d made it clear what he thought of men like Richard. 

Men like Richard. Men who jerked off their clients in the brig. Dammit, he was cringing just thinking about it. Whatever had possessed him? Just because the liquor had been strong as hell, and the first officer had been beautiful and brave and scared. What if Chris told people? Laughed at how he’d got himself a personal favour from the loser lawyer sent to interview him?

Richard took a deep breath and tried to think clearly. Chris didn’t seem the kiss-and-tell type. And Richard could just put on his most pompous face and staunchly deny it. No one would ever believe it of him. He could hardly believe it of himself. These last few days had been the most daring thing ever to happen in Richard’s life. He doubted it even made the top twenty list for Chris. 

He’d probably never see Chris again, Starfleet was a huge organisation and there was little reason for their paths to cross. And if they ever did, he doubted Chris would even recognise him, just one more anonymous face that had swirled by in an exciting life in space, someone to be used briefly when Chris needed help, and then promptly forgotten.

The beautiful young man was doubtless high on his success, drunk, half-naked, rolling into bed with one or more equally exciting beings, people who matched his passion and charm and experience, and here Richard was, drinking alone—

“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you. Why didn’t you wait for me after the hearing? Server! Champagne! The best you’ve got and keep in coming.”

Richard looked up in surprise as a beaming Chris Pike slid into the seat next to him, his deep blue eyes sparkling with excitement. “We did it! We won!” Chris pushed a glass of champagne towards him.

“You mean you were cleared,” said Richard. “I didn’t have much to do with it. Your actions were ruled to be justified.”

“More than justified! Commodore Katsande didn’t just clear me, she called it ‘conduct becoming of a Starfleet officer’!”

“Indeed, and that’ll go on your personnel record. You’ve come out of it very well. As you should’ve.”

Chris looked at him curiously. “Yeah, but I wouldn’t have got there without help. My counsel said that your deposition and supporting documents were about four times as long as is normal in these cases. You put in a lot of work.”

Richard shifted uncomfortably. It hadn’t occurred to him that Chris would ever find out about that. “It was the right thing to do,” he said awkwardly.

“It was more than that,” Chris pushed on relentlessly. “My counsel said once you’d submitted the docs, you got on the interplanetary comms and you started lobbying the brass back at headquarters. That was a hell of a risk. Once you’ve got in their affairs like that, if I’d gone down, you’d have gone down too.” 

Richard fiddled with his champagne glass. Dammit, he’d never meant for Chris to realise that he’d become more than a little over-invested in this case. It was the first time he’d really been exposed to the messiness of justice in action when intertwined in complex politics. It was very different from the clarity of his law books and case files. He hadn’t liked what he’d seen. 

He seldom articulated the ideals that underlay his commitment to the service, he knew many of the cynics would have simply mocked him, but this mattered to him. He looked defiantly back at Chris. “I joined Starfleet because I believe in the mission. But that doesn’t mean just swearing blind allegiance to the flag and following any order that I’m given. It means holding Starfleet accountable to keeping to the spirit of the mission. If you’d gone down, this would not have been an organisation where I was comfortable serving.” 

He was tense with expectation at the end of his little speech, afraid that Chris would laugh at his idealism, but the other man just grinned back, and lifted his glass to clink it against Richard’s. “I knew there was a reason I liked you!” Chris leaned back and ran a speculative eye down Richard’s body. “Liked you quite a lot, actually.”

“Umm, about that thing in the brig—” Richard said tentatively, hoping for reassurance that Chris was prepared to forget that it had happened.

“Yeah, I owe you one. Don’t worry, I pay my debts!” Chris grinned lecherously. “From the moment I realised I was going to get out of there okay, I was watching you across the room, thinking about it. Going down on my knees for you, being very, very grateful.”

Richard was too startled to think of a reply, and Chris was sidetracked by another thought. “Actually, I was surprised to see you at the court martial. I thought they’d ship you straight home once your work was done.” 

“I took leave,” admitted Richard awkwardly. “I wanted to see what actually happened.”

“So you’re on leave? How long have you got?”

“Just until the next ship heads back to Earth, tomorrow at 08.00.” 

“What! You mean we’ve only got 16 hours? Why didn’t you say so? We shouldn’t be wasting time here at the bar.” Chris slapped down some credits and grabbed the half-drunk bottle of champagne. “Come on. Let’s go.” 

“Go?” Richard looked at Chris in bewilderment.

“Of course!” There was a moment of confusion as it finally seemed to dawn on Chris that they weren’t on the same page, and his tone changed from commanding to coaxing. “Oh come on.” He gave Richard a flirtatious grin. “You really do need to give me a second chance. I wasn’t at my best in that damned holding cell. I’m normally a lot better at it than that.”

Richard continued to watch him in confusion. It all seemed so unlikely - that right now, in his moment of triumph, Chris Pike wanted to spend his time with Richard, having sex. And that he wanted it badly enough to be prepared to coax Richard into agreeing.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “If you’re sure.”

“Oh hell yes. Come on. I’ll get us a decent room, this is worth a bit more comfort than officer quarters.”

Richard trailed behind as Chris organised everything in an efficient flurry and soon the two of them were alone in an elevator, shooting them upward towards a suite that cost a good deal more than Richard would have managed at his pay grade.

“So. About that blowjob,” said Chris.

“You don’t have to do that,” said Richard, caught between arousal and lingering discomfort at the implications of it.

“Hell yeah, I do. Don’t tell me you’ve never fantasised about having a smart-assed officer on his knees for you?” 

Richard shifted uncomfortably. “Maybe. Once or twice. You space-boys can be damned annoying. We’ve actually met before, do you remember?”

Chris looked blank.

“When I was a first-year cadet in the Academy, you must have been in your final year. In my first term, you supervised a mandatory PT at 06.00. I despised it. And you. I’d barely made it through the entry physical anyway, I was there for the intellectual challenge. And then you upped the ante on what was expected of us beyond all my expectations. Sure, it did me good in the long run, but at the time, I really didn’t like you.”

Chris grinned apologetically. “Yeah, well, I didn’t mean to be, but I suspect I may have been a bit of an ass as a senior cadet, I was just so stoked about going into space, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to do anything else with their lives. I guess I’ll just have to make it up to you.” 

The elevator door opened and Chris hustled Richard down the corridor, opened a room door and pushed Richard up against the inside of it as soon as it closed.

Richard watched dry-mouthed as the young officer sank gracefully to his knees in front of him.

“You don’t have to—“ he tried again.

“Oh fuck yeah, I do.” The lascivious hunger in Chris’s voice finally stilled Richard’s last doubts and shortly thereafter nimble fingers dug into his briefs and a hot, velvet wet mouth wrapped around his dick and his brain short-circuited altogether.

* * *

Although Chris had promised Richard 16 hours of non-stop action, a few hours in the young officer had finally collapsed and was now very firmly asleep, using Richard’s stomach as a pillow. Richard was not surprised, after all that Chris had been through. He was still awake, carefully mentally cataloguing what was undoubtedly the best sex of his life to date. He suspected he was going to be jerking off to memories of this for years to come.

He was still trying to decide whether his all-time favourite memory was Chris on his knees - those pretty pink lips stretched obscenely around his dark cock, his thick fingers buried in those blond curls, or whether it was rather later, him flat on his back on the bed, Chris impaled on his cock, riding him like stallion, head thrown back, chest glistening with sweat. The lean muscled body of the commander, all pale cream and peachy pink, set against his own dark broad body, a study in contrasts, united in their fascination with each other. Yes, he’d not forget that in a hurry, not least because he was very carefully storing each detail in his memory.

He was jerked out of his reverie when Chris’s comm began to beep. Chris snapped awake and began to fumble around him to find it. “Fuck, that’s something official.”

Richard dialled up the lights while Chris finally found the comm. He stared at the screen. “It’s new orders.”

“Well? Go on, open it. What’ve they given you?” Richard was curious to know what would come next after that court martial. 

Uncharacteristically, given his normal level of confidence, Chris seemed to be prevaricating. “What if they’re booting me off into the ass-end of space, on some clean-up ship or something?” For just a moment, he began to gnaw on the nail of his left thumb, and then, as if suddenly aware of what he was doing, he whipped his hand away again. 

“You came out of it very well, they won’t be doing that.”

“Yes, but, what if? The Commodore cleared me but the politics around it all hasn’t gone away. She doesn’t get to decide my next assignment.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, give me that.” Richard was far too curious about the outcome to put up with Chris’s crisis of confidence. He snatched the comm out of Chris’s hand and tapped open the message. Reading it quickly, he slammed on his very best utterly inscrutable lawyer’s face, before turning to face Chris. “Well, that’s a surprise.”

“What? What is it? What’ve they done?” demanded Chris, sounding more worried than ever. He reached for the comm and Richard held it away from him, out of his grasp.

“Let me be the first to congratulate you, _captain_.”

“ _What?_ ” Chris was scrabbling across Richard’s body, grabbing for the comm, devouring the order. “Oh my fucking god, I made captain. And they’ve given me a command. I’ve got a ship!” 

Several confused minutes followed, as Chis attempted to kiss Richard and to read his comm at the same time. Eventually realising it wasn’t going to work, he twisted round so that he was sitting in the vee of Richard’s legs, leaning back against Richard’s broad chest, and gave his full attention to his orders.

“I’ve got a ship! A Soyuz-class ship. Fuck yeah, they’re great ships. Really compact, lots of power, no frills. I’ve got the USS Aksay. And she’s just been upgraded, extra shielding, more weapons. That’s a real fighting ship. Oh! Just look at her!”

Chris had found images and schematics of his new command and was scrolling through them, exclaiming over her capabilities and cooing over her features.

Richard wasn’t that interested in the details of ships, he knew the pointy bit was likely to go in front, and from the writing on the side, he could tell which way was up, but beyond that he didn’t much care. So he leaned back against the pillows and watched Chris instead, watched his ever-deepening delight and enthusiasm. With considerable amusement, and just a touch of jealousy, Richard realised he was watching as, minute by minute, Chris Pike fell in love with his first starship.

It was quite some time later, in which Chris had mentally vanished deep into the schematics of his vessel, when Chris suddenly stopped. He closed down the schematics and began to quickly pull up other data. Finally, he shifted round so that he was sitting looking at Richard. “Do you know I’m the youngest captain in the last thirty years?”

“Oh yeah? Congratulations.”

“But why? I know I’m good, but still— even on my most optimistic estimates, I wasn’t going to make captain for at least another eighteen months. And suddenly, I’ve got it now? Just hours after that touch-and-go court martial? What just happened?”

It was a very good point.

“Come on, it’s not a rhetorical question. You’re the one who’s up on all the politics at HQ. What do you think is actually going on?”

Richard scrambled to pull together his scattered thoughts. “Okay. Captain Kamnach was part of an important clique on the right-hand fringe of Starfleet. They’ve suffered on a major blow in your exoneration. Given his years of service I doubt they’ll court martial him—“

Chris snorted in disgust.

“Yeah, I know it’s not fair, but still. I’d expect early retirement, effective immediately and with none of the fanfare he’d have expected for his departure. When I was trying to lobby for you, I found a receptive audience among the supporters of Admiral Straczeskie, he’s on the progressive wing and very active politically.” Richard paused for a moment, sorting through the ideas racing in his head.

“My best guess is that your precipitate promotion is Straczeskie’s way of rubbing defeat into the faces of his enemies. Clearly, they couldn’t do it if you weren’t good enough, but you’re also a pawn in their game.”

“So my ship comes with strings? Someday they may want payback for this?”

“That is possible,” agreed Richard slowly.

“I can’t take her. I can’t take a command that’s tainted like this.” Chris pushed his comm away, sounding horrified. 

“Come off it, Chris. Every promotion that matters comes with political undertones. Think about it. You’re still protected by Starfleet regulations. You can’t be demoted for no good

reason. So someone comes to you in the future and implies you owe them something for this promotion. You can play the naif and refuse to understand. You can play hardball and refuse to cooperate. Or you can look at who they are and what they want, and decide if it’s in your interests or not.”

Chris had his arms wrapped round his bent knees and was watching Richard intently. “Fucking hell, I always thought about command in terms of the dangers of space and the safety of the crew, I never considered all this crap going on back at home.”

Richard shrugged. “You can call it crap or you can call it opportunity. Plenty of officers don’t do well negotiating all of this. If you can play this game, you’re ahead of most before you even start.”

Chris was lost in thought for a moment before turning his intense gaze back onto Richard. “I could do with help, though. I can’t run a ship and keep current on politics back at HQ. I could really do with having someone on the home front feeding me information and helping me understand the bigger picture.” He hesitated as he watched Richard. “I don’t know what I can offer you in return, though. Obviously _benefits_ any time our paths cross, but more than that—“

Richard tried to force his mind into gear. His thinking had been abruptly short-circuited by Chris’s causal expectation that ongoing benefits were obvious. He’d been quietly assuming that this was one extraordinary happenstance and he’d never see the young captain again. His dick would have been perfectly happy to trade benefits for information but his political acumen told him that a relationship of equals needed a better balance than that.

“I’ve been wondering about embarking on a doctorate, looking at the Prime Directive and whether its current form is fit for purpose. It would be useful to get honest information from someone having to deal with it in the field.”

“Yeah, I could do that. That’d be interesting.” Chris’s beautiful blue eyes were alight with enthusiasm. “I’m beginning to have a lot more respect for Starfleet regulations. I have to admit that I was as dismissive as any of people like you, paper-pushers dreaming up rigid rules without any real-world experience in the black. I thought captains should be left to operate on their experience and gut instincts. Now I’m beginning to see that this can get messy in multiple dimensions. Having the protection of those rules really matters.”

Richard smiled back at Chris, holding tight onto his own rising excitement. He had quietly mapped out a path through to the Admiralty years before, things he’d need to achieve to make that a reality. He’d known he would have to make alliances outside his own small world of Starfleet law but hadn’t really known how to make it happen. And now, spontaneously, it was unfolding in front of him. He could see his future beginning to take shape and it seemed to be going to have more fun in it, and more sex, than he had ever expected. 

Chris retrieved his comm and flicked back to the image of his new command, floating effortlessly in deep space. “So… It seems to me we’ve got something to celebrate here. And I was thinking—” He pressed himself up against Richard, deliberately teasing as he slid across naked skin, rutting a rapidly growing erection against Richard’s thigh. “I was thinking it would be kind of hot if you sucked me off, lieutenant, given that I’m a captain and all—”

Richard regarded him sceptically, taking in the sparkling eyes and the hot flush on his cheeks. “What you actually mean is you want me to suck you off, while you perv over images of your new ship. You’re just using me while you dream about fucking your new girl.”

“Well, maybe, just a little.” Chris looked a little sheepish and a lot turned on. “It’ll be hot! And I’ll make it worth your while.”

Richard had every intention of complying but it still amused him to make Chris work for it. “And how will you do that?”

“You’re the ambitious little shit in this room, the one with your finger on the pulse of the politics. My counsel called you a pushy young man who’s going to go far. You’ll make Admiral long before I will, if I ever do. I hereby promise that when you make Admiral I will present myself in your doubtlessly swanky office and you can celebrate your promotion by fucking me over your desk.” 

Well, yes, Richard found he did like the sound of that. And the visual that his mind so helpfully presented. And the idea that Chris might still be in his life that far into their future. “Hang on, let me just add that to my Admiralty to-do list.” He grabbed his padd.

“You have a to-do list for when you make Admiral?” Chris boggled at him.

“Yes actually. I have a list for each rank, things I want to do, but I have to wait until I have enough authority. Personal organisation, Christopher, it’s the key to success.” Richard was teasing Chris with his very stuffiest voice as he opened up his padd. “But you should be honoured to know that I am moving you right to the top of my list.”

He tapped quickly on the screen and then showed Chris the entry:

_To Do: on making Rear Admiral  
Summon Captain Pike for a comprehensive screwing over my new desk._

\- THE END -


End file.
